Hollyhock Part 29

'Hollyhock, you really have been exceedingly naughty, but your conduct to Leucha _after_ her terrible fright has been _splendid_; and although I greatly fear, knowing Leucha's character, that you will find it difficult to get back her love, yet there are many others in the school, my child, who love you, and who will love you for ever.'

'Yes; but it was Leuchy I wanted,' said Hollyhock. 'The others were so easy to win. I could always win love; but Leuchy, she's so cold, and now she's frozen up, like marble, she is.'

'You must take that as your punishment, for no other punishment will I give you, except to ask you not to play that kind of practical joke again.'

'Oh my!' exclaimed Hollyhock, 'but the mischief is in me. I dare not make a promise. You would not, if you had a wild heart like mine.'

'Well, Hollyhock, I shall expect, for the honour of the school, that you will do your _best_. And one thing I must ask of you--it is this.

Meg feels herself very superior, with the superiority of the Pharisee.

Most of the girls in the school will hate her for what she said to-day; but I want you, as a dear friend, to take her part.'

'Oh, but that 'll be hard,' said Hollyhock.

'The divine grace can help you, my child. I 'm not one of the "unco guid," but I believe most fully in the all-prevailing love of the great G.o.d and His Son, our blessed Saviour. Now kiss me, and go to your lessons as though nothing had happened.'

'But Leuchy!' exclaimed Hollyhock.

'I'll manage Leucha. I greatly fear that I shall have a difficult task, but I shall let you know to-morrow at latest what att.i.tude she intends to take up. A girl of broader, n.o.bler views would, of course, see the joke and make fun of it; but Leucha, in her way, is as narrow as Meg is in hers.'

'Oh dear, oh dear!' sighed Hollyhock. 'Well, at all events, I 'll get rid of her kisses. Oh, they were _so_ trying!'

'I saw that you hated them, my child.'

'Did you notice that, Mrs Macintyre? How wonderful you are!'

'No, my dear baby. But I, who equally hate being kissed, saw what you were enduring in a n.o.ble cause. It _may_ come right in the end, Hollyhock. We must hope for the best.'

'Oh, but you are a darling!' said Hollyhock, flinging her arms round the head-mistress's neck. 'Oh, but I love you!'

'And for my sake you 'll abstain from tricks in the school?'

'I 'll not promise; but, at the same time, I 'll do my level best.'

Hollyhock, notwithstanding Mrs Macintyre's great kindness, spent a really wretched day. She kept her word, however, as she had promised, with regard to Meg, and during morning recess went to her side, and tried with all that wonderful charm she possessed to be kind to her.

She did not allude to Meg's confession, but spoke to her with all her old affection. Meg stared at the girl whom she now considered her enemy in haughty surprise, refused to reply to any of Hollyhock's endearments, and walked away with her head in the air.

'You dare,' she exclaimed at last, 'when you know too well that you ought to be expelled!'

Meg then turned her back on Hollyhock, but was followed in her self-imposed exile by the laughter and jeers of most of the girls in the school, who flocked eagerly round their favourite, telling her that they at least would ever and always be her dearest friends. Many of the said girls a.s.sured poor Hollyhock that they were glad that the nasty _kissing_ English girl was no longer to divide them from their lively favourite. But Hollyhock's most loving heart was really full of Leucha. Her nature could not by any possibility really suit Leucha's, but Holly had taken her up, and it would be very hard now for her to withdraw her love. Besides, she had done wrong--very wrong--and Leuchy had a right to be angry.

During the whole of that miserable day Leucha absented herself from the school, and all Mrs Macintyre's words proved so far in vain. She had no good news to give Hollyhock; therefore she told her nothing. But toward evening she had a very grave conversation with Jasmine, who made a proposal of her own. If this idea fell through, Mrs Macintyre felt that the mean nature of Meg, joined to the yet meaner nature of Leucha herself, must for the present at least win the day. She had some hope in this plan, but meanwhile her warm heart was full of sorrow for her bonnie Hollyhock.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE END OF LOVE.

The plan was carried into effect. Mr Lennox was consulted, and being the best and most amiable of men, after talking for a short time to his young daughter Jasmine, he went over and had a consultation with Mrs Macintyre. Mrs Macintyre agreed most eagerly to Jasmine's suggestion, and accordingly, two days after Meg had 'saved her immortal soul,'

Leucha and Jasmine were excused lessons--Leucha on the plea of ill-health, Jasmine because she wished to help her darling Hollyhock's friend.

The two girls were excused lessons; as for preparation for the prize compet.i.tion, that they might go on with or not, as they wished.

Jasmine had no love for gems, but she would like to gain one of the lockets containing the great crest of her mother's people, her own ancestors. But if she lost it, she would be the last girl to fret.

She had as little ambition in her as had Hollyhock herself. Leucha, on the other hand, was keenly anxious to get the famous crest locket, and when Jasmine a.s.sured her that she would have ample opportunities of studying the ways of wee Jean, she condescended to accompany Jasmine to The Garden.

She found The Garden, however, very dull. She found the kitchen cat, whenever she came across her, intolerable; she scared wee Jean away from her, saying, 'Get away, you ugly beast!' and took not the slightest pains to make herself agreeable.

Hollyhock, with tears very, very near her black eyes, had implored of Jasper to come to her a.s.sistance and tell home truths in his plain Scots way to the English girl. This Jasper promptly promised to do, and his mother gave him leave to go over from the Annex to The Garden, in order to help Leucha.

Jasmine, with all her strength of character, was too gentle for the task she had undertaken; but there was no gentleness about fierce young Jasper. He naturally thought that Holly, the dear that she was, had gone too far; but he could not stand a common-place girl like Leuchy making such a row.

Now the facts were simply these. Leucha hated, with a violent, pa.s.sionate, wicked hate, all the terrible past; but she still loved--loved as she could not believe possible--that black-eyed la.s.s Hollyhock. Hollyhock had played a horrid trick on her; nevertheless Leucha loved her, and mourned for her, and was perfectly wretched at The Garden without her.

Oh no, she would never be _friends_ with her again--_never_! Such a thing was impossible; but nevertheless she loved--she loved Hollyhock, with a sort of craving which caused her to long to see the bright glint in her eyes and the bonnie smile round her lips. As for Jasmine, she was less than nothing in Leucha's eyes. Hollyhock, although she would not say it for the world, was all in all to the miserable, proud, silly girl.

Hollyhock's heart was also aching for Leucha, and her anxiety was great with regard to what was taking place at The Garden. Would Jasmine and Jasper between them have any effect on Leuchy? Hollyhock felt for the first time in her life feverish, miserable, and anxious. She could not sleep well at nights; her nights were haunted by dreams of Leucha and the wicked things she herself had done as a mere frolic. But there was no news from The Garden, and she had to bear her restless suffering as best she could. Gladly now would she have submitted to Leuchy's kisses, if Leuchy would come back to her friend.

Meg walked with pious mien about the grounds of Ards.h.i.+el; her conscience was at rest. She won the affections of a certain number of the new Scots girls, and tried her best to set them against Hollyhock; but there was a magical influence about Hollyhock which prevented any girl being set against her; and although the girls _did_ say that Meg had a st.u.r.dy conscience, and that she must be very happy to have made her confession, yet as the evening hour drew on they returned, as though spell-bound, to Hollyhock's side to listen with fascinated eyes and half-open mouths to her tales of bogies and ghosties.

Poor Hollyhock was feeling so restless and despairing that she threw extra venom into her narratives, making the ghosts worse than any ghosts that were ever heard of before, and the bogies and witches more subtle and more vicious. Meg did not dare to come near, but she looked with contempt at her friends who were so easily drawn to Hollyhock's side.

Meanwhile, at The Garden the days and hours were pa.s.sing. Mr Lennox was entirely absorbed with his work, and saw little or nothing of his children. What little he did see of Leucha he disliked, and he thought his dear Hollyhock far too kind to her. On the following Sunday he would speak to Hollyhock, and tell her not to play those silly tricks again. Otherwise he had no time to consider the matter.

But, on a certain day--Thursday, to be accurate--Jasper, having been prepared beforehand by Jasmine, had a talk alone with Leucha. He was really sick of Leucha by this time, and meant to use plain words.

'Well, you are a poor thing,' he began.

'What do you mean?' said Leucha, turning white in her anger.

'Why, here you are in one of the grandest and best houses in the country, petted and fussed over, and just because my cousin Hollyhock chose to play a prank on you. My word! she might play twenty pranks on me and I 'd love her all the more.'

'You're a boy; you are different! She nearly killed me, if that's what you call love!'

'Nearly killed you, indeed! Not a bit of it! I 'm thinking it would take a lot to finish you off. Many and many a trick would have to be played before you 'd expire.'

'You are talking in a very rude way,' said Leucha.

'I 'm not. I know what I 'm about!'

'Then you surely do not dare to tell me to my face that your cousin did right in frightening me so terribly?'

'I 'm not saying anything so silly. I know too well the kind you are made of, Leuchy Villiers. Hollyhock did wrong, and Meg did, to my thinking, a sight worse.'

'Meg was really n.o.ble,' said Leucha.

'If _that's_ your idea of n.o.bleness, keep it and treasure it all your life.'

'Meg had to save her soul,' said Leucha.